"
With these words, he loosened the grappling-irons and flung down the
ladders, and, with the natural impulse to cover his guilty knowledge of
the affair, fired his musket, with a loud cry of "Enemies!"
This alarm cry forced the storming-party to fly with all speed. The
patrol saw them from the wall and fired on them as they scrambled
hastily down the rocks. One of them, an old man, Captain McLean, rolled
down the cliff and was much hurt. He was taken prisoner by a party of
the burgher guard, whom the justice-clerk had sent to patrol the outside
of the walls. They took also three young men, who protested that they
were there by accident, and had nothing to do with the attempt. The rest
of the party escaped. In their retreat they met Charles Forbes, coming
tardily up with the ladders which, a quarter of an hour earlier, might
have made them masters of the castle, but which were now simply an
aggravation.
It does not seem that any one was punished for this attempt, beyond the
treacherous sergeant, who was tried, found guilty, and hanged, and the
deputy-governor, who was deprived of his office and imprisoned for some
time. No proof could be obtained against any one else.
As for the conspirators, indeed, it is probable that the most of them
found their way to the army of the Earl of Mar, who was soon afterwards
in the field at the head of some twelve thousand armed men, pronouncing
himself the general of His Majesty James III.
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